The real-life backdrop of High School Musical is getting into the act.

East High School in Salt Lake City, Utah – which provided several of the locations for Zac Efron, Vanessa Hudgens and the others when they shot the Disney Channel’s High School Musical and High School Musical 2 – has jumped on the bandwagon and will produce its own stage version of the smash hit.

“This is a really great opportunity,” Kevin McClellan, the school’s drama teacher, tells the Salt Lake City Tribune – despite some initial reservations about doing the show on campus.

“We were apprehensive about it at first because we were so tired of it,” drama club president Amber Lee, a senior, told the paper.

Part of the hesitation had to do with the school’s becoming a tourist destination. Over the summer, 40 to 50 people a day reportedly stopped by with their cameras to see where Troy (Efron) frolicked with Gabriella (Hudgens).

“So many people coming here and taking pictures,” said Lee, “It kind of gets annoying after a while.”

Yet not everyone is displeased. “It’s quite the buzz,” said school principal Paul Sagers – noting that the PTA is seizing the opportunity and selling East High School T-shirts.

“The traffic has been unbelievable,” Sagers says.

Drama coach McClellan foresees involving some 200 students in some aspect of the production. And though Ayden Jensen, a senior, won’t be actively participating – since he’s not an actor, he tells the Tribune – he will be cheering it on.

“Since they filmed High School Musical here,” he says, the show, which will run from Nov. 7 to 12, should “bring more people since [the school]’s already famous for it.”